But Catherine shook her head. “I’m afraid, Daddy.”
“Of what?”
“That you and mommy won’t love me anymore,” she said, trembling all over. “I’m scared of them now.” She looked into her father’s eyes, her own eyes for the first time giving him a glimpse of the terrible secret she carried inside her. They want me to do something, something very bad, Daddy. Something that will make you and mommy not love me anymore.”
Rev. Kline stared at his daughter. “There’s nothing like that, honey; nothing like that in the world. Nothing you could ever do that would make us stop loving you.”
Catherine, her cheeks wet with tears, only looked down and shook her head.
And again he pulled her to him and kissed her. In a voice that would haunt him for the rest of his life, Rev. Kline heard his daughter whisper, “There is, Daddy. I know.” And hearing his daughter s words, Rev. Kline knew that there was not any power on earth, not even a father’s love, that could free Catherine of her terrible secret.
For the next two months, Catherine saw the psychologist. During this period, it seemed as if the Reverend’s prayers had miraculously been answered. From the first visit, Catherine began to show signs of improvement. The midnight whispering stopped. Even the sideways glances and the inexplicable laughter. Sadie Kline was overjoyed and told her husband that they had gotten their little girl back. And yet there were moments when the Reverend had to wonder, moments when he seemed to catch a glimpse of some hidden, agonizing struggle that Catherine was carrying on within herself. Sometimes in the middle of the night he would go into her room to check on her and he would find her motionless and yet awake, with beads of sweat on her forehead, her hair matted. Holding his hand on her head, he would ask her if she was sick or feverish. But she would only shake her head and whisper, “I’m okay, Daddy. I’ll go to sleep soon, I promise.” At other times he would find her weeping by the back steps of the house, unable to give any reason for her tears.
Then one Sunday, two weeks after the psychologist decided he no longer needed to see her, Rev. Kline was holding one of his regular services. In the middle of his sermon, he happened to glance down at the front row, where his wife and his little girl always sat, and saw in horror that Catherine was standing. Every inch of her body was trembling violently. Her mouth hung partially open, her eyes fixed on something that seemed to be hovering right behind the Reverend’s head. Her mother, leaning over, asked what was wrong, if she was sick. But Catherine didn’t answer. People were beginning to notice them. Sadie asked Catherine if she would like to leave, that they would go on home if she felt bad. Then, all at once, Catherine began screaming, bursting into tears, and throwing herself down on her mother in total despair, crying over and over again, “I’m sorry. . . I’m so sorry, Momma. I tried to make them go away, but they won’t. They won’t.”
It was shortly after this incident that Rev. Kline and his wife started keeping Catherine at home, telling people she was suffering from a serious illness, though when the town gossips inquired what this might be, the Reverend and his wife never managed to give a cogent answer. “Plumb lost her mind,” Edna May McGee explained. “Sees them things of hers nearly every hour of the day, laughing and crying and a-talking with them. Bless her little heart. Why, there ain’t no hope for her at all. Not a speck.” And even those who weren’t inclined to rumormongering began to wonder.
What really happened at the Kline house during that period no one, not even Hattie, could say for sure, though there was enough speculation, most of it based on the way that both Kline and his wife seemed to be deteriorating with every passing day. “I ain’t never seen nobody go down so fast,” Edna May declared. “Don’t know which of them two it’s been harder on, that girl of theirs going crazy like she done.”
Then something happened. And although no one really knew how it all came about, it was this point that everything else in the story led up to.
One night the girl disappeared. Her mother, accustomed to checking on her through the night, went up to Catherine’s room a little after three in the morning. Pushing the door open, she stared at the moonlight as it spread itself across the empty bed. “Catherine?” she called. Then, going to the bathroom down the hall, she turned on the light inside. But again nothing. A few moments later, Sadie Kline had awakened her husband and together they went through the house and searched the backyard.
For three days, people looked for the girl. On the afternoon of the third day, Larry’s daddy was notified by the authorities at Milledgeville that, somehow, Luther had escaped, though they quickly added that considering his severely catatonic state, it was doubtful he could pose any threat to anyone. Indeed, they even felt it unlikely he could have gotten more than a few miles from the mental institute.
They were wrong.
“I told you about what Hattie said. I mean, what Luther did to Catherine at the snake well. About the crazy laughter.”
Jamey nodded. “How long did she live?”
“Only about four months,” Larry said. “So I guess, even if she was carrying Luther’s child—like Luther wanted her to—the child would have died with her anyway. Of course, nobody knew for sure, since the old Doc, he wouldn’t let anyone lay eyes on her, except her parents. Because of what Luther put all over her. And her parents, they kind of went crazy when they saw what he had done to Catherine.” Larry paused. “Anyway, that’s what Hattie told me. Only, she made it sound like…”
“Like what?”
“Like it wasn’t really over yet. Like all that stuff, it was leading up to something else. Something even worse,” Larry said, then, recalling Hattie’s words to him, he shivered. “And the craziest part-of all was, she made it sound like I’ve got something to do with it. Like it would be up to me to keep it from happening, the terrible thing that was coming.”
This time Jamey didn’t say a word.
“Anyway, I guess we should go to sleep now.”
“Okay,” Jamey whispered. Larry glanced over at him.
He was still trembling.
6
Across town a single light burned in the Kline house.
The old preacher sat at the kitchen table, listening. His wife had gotten up again, waking at this hour or that, not knowing sometimes whether it was day or night, as if, to her, it no longer made any difference.
He sat there, surrounded by the wreck of their kitchen. The stacks of unwashed dishes, the grease-splotched top of the old gas oven, the glasses with their thin crusts of stale milk at the bottom, the splattered food, the cockroach that, mounting a moldy loaf of bread, stopped a moment, as if to survey the vast treasure contained in the loosened Colonial wrapper.
He was about to stand up, to go over and seal the wrapper. But as he went to unlock his brace, he decided against it. Instead, he sat there and watched the cockroach disappear inside the opened end.
What did it matter? The bread would go to the birds anyway.
From the hallway, he heard Sadie’s voice. It was another of her hymns. Or, at least, it was supposed to be. Had been at one time. Long ago.
And, listening to it, he remembered the way she used to sing when she was young. She had the most beautiful voice he had ever heard. He listened, his mind going back to those Sundays when Sadie would sing a solo in the church. He would close his eyes and feel the presence of something good all around him.
Grace, he had thought at the time.
Coming into the doorway of the kitchen, she stood a moment, though without seeming to notice him. She kept lifting her hand up and down, beating out time as if for some invisible choir.
“Sadie,” he whispered, “something wake you, honey?”
She looked at him suddenly, blinking. He saw that look three or four times a day now, but each time it still froze his heart. It was a look of surprise, a look that said, “Why, who are you?”
She hesitated a moment, then step
ped closer into the kitchen, for a better look. She tilted her head, giving her little frown, looking as delicate as a bird. In the light he could see the various streaks and stains on her nightgown. The orange juice, the milk, the urine.
For a while, he had tried his best to keep her as she used to be. Brushing her hair, washing her clothes, bathing her, even, at times, putting on a little makeup, some rouge on her cheeks, just to give them the old color. But all of that was long gone. Now he did what he had to, taking care only of what could not be ignored. The times when Sadie relieved herself on the sofa, or threw up the little food that she ate, or when, at any hour of the day, he might find her wandering in the backyard, half in, half out of her old tattered nightgown. Or the times when he would not find her at all. With dread he envisioned a day, not too far off, when he would be forced to lie helpless in his bedroom, unable to move, while Sadie fluttered around him like a ghost.
All at once, she broke into a smile. It was like the eager smile of a little girl with a secret to tell. She went up to him, beaming with excitement. “I saw him again. Tonight.”
“Saw what, hon?”
“Don’t you remember? I told you. He’s come back.” She waited a moment, tilting her head from side to side, scrutinizing his face. “Why, aren’t you happy? Aren’t you happy he’s come back?”
Kline stared down at the grease-stained floor and gave a weak nod. “Who’s come back?”
“Don’t you remember? Simon told you all about him long, long ago. When you went to his house. It came to him one night. . . an angel of light. And now. . . he’s come back. Come back to finish what he began. I tried to tell Charlie the other day down by the river. About the wonderful plans he has for little Larry.” Sadie said, her face beaming. She glanced over to the counter. “Why, look there.” She went over and picked up the loaf of Colonial bread. He watched her, looking at the thin wisps of her white hair and the pink flesh visible underneath. “Oh, there’s enough in here for them all, she said. “There must be four or five pieces. Don’t you think that will be enough?”
Rev. Kline nodded. “Yes, hon.”
“I know they’ll be happy, don’t you?”
He made his way over to the window, and lowering his head, he looked out at the backyard.
Sadie was standing in the moonlight, breaking off pieces of bread and tossing them onto the grass.
“Here, birds,” she called out. “Here, I’ve brought you some nice bread. Here, birds.
He watched her scattering the crumbs.
After a few moments, he turned from the window and slowly made his way back to his dark bedroom. He unlocked his leg brace and eased himself into his bed.
He stared up into the darkness. The darkness in which he lived most of his life without ever having to reckon it. When he still had his faith, he had simply believed that light would triumph, that in the end the whole universe would be pervaded with it, shot through with the blinding glory of the Lord, Satan and night put under Him forever.
But it wasn’t going to be that way. And even if at certain moments he still heard something whispering otherwise, something that told him he was wrong, he no longer believed it would be without its agony.
The garden of agony, he remembered. Gethsemane. He should have understood back then, before everything happened, before his world was crushed under. He should have recalled Jesus’ words in that garden, on the eve of His crucifixion. “Let this cup pass from me,” He had begged, even Jesus. Even God Himself had not wanted the agony, the suffering, the darkness of Good Friday. Even God did not want such things in His universe. No matter that there would be some final resurrection. It could not eradicate what had been suffered.
But if God did not want it, how did it get there? So much darkness?
Kline remembered the words Jehovah spoke to Job out of the whirlwind. A challenge: “And as for darkness, where is its place?” Job did not answer. But then, Kline thought, neither did Jehovah.
Upstairs, he could hear his wife’s footsteps. Lying there motionless, he waited, bracing himself to hear the words he could not stop, the words his wife always spoke in the same way, as when long ago she used to put Catherine to bed.
He listened as the door creaked open upstairs. The door to Catherine s room.
He held his breath. Then he heard it. His wife’s voice, so sweet when she said it. So soothing.
“Good night, Catherine,” she said, her voice drifting down through the dark and desolate house. “And don’t you worry any more, honey. We believe you. We believe you now. Your daddy, too. So there’s nothing to worry about anymore. We believe you.”
7
Larry opened his eyes, blinking groggily at the leaves over his head. Propping himself up on his elbow, he remembered. He was outside. In the tree house. Scowling the sleep away, Larry lifted himself up on his elbow, then rubbed his eyes. “Jamey?” He looked at the other sleeping bag. It was empty.
He stared at it a moment, confused. Then, twisting around, he looked to the other side of the tree house, but Jamey wasn’t there, either.
Larry jumped up and went to the railing, then looked at the house. Maybe Jamey had gone inside. Larry quickly went down the ladder and was about to start toward the kitchen door when he heard something, a noise coming from farther back in the dark yard.
“Jamey?’
Larry waited for a response, then went back farther into the yard and looked around. But everything struck him as wrong. It was as if under the cover of darkness, his backyard had undergone a peculiar transformation, making what was as familiar to him as the back of his hand seem strange and spooky and full of mystery. He took a step, stumbling over a bush that had never seemed to be in that spot before. He got up and looked over to the far corner, the one right on the other side of the old tire swing his daddy had put up for him when he was little.
That was when Larry saw him.
He waited, not sure what to do. Then, calling out the boy’s name again, he stepped over toward him slowly, stopping every now and then to make sure it really was Jamey after all.
“Jamey? You okay?” he called out, only ten feet away. But still, even though he had used a normal tone of voice, Jamey had not looked around at him. He sat crouched down right next to a huge pecan tree, his frail body trembling all over.
Larry went and stooped down next to the boy. “Jamey, what’s wrong?”
But it was the same as before. Nothing. Not the slightest trace of a reaction.
That was when Larry heard what the other boy was whispering.
It was a terrible, pathetic, mechanical sobbing. Over and over, the same whispered plea: “No. . . I don’t want to see them. Don’t make me go there, please. I don’t want to see them. ’
Larry’s eyes widened. He told himself, at first, that it was just a practical joke and that Jamey was just acting this way to scare him. But then, as he stared into the other boy’s pale and frightened face, Larry felt a quick, tingling chill: It was no joke.
“Who are you talking to? Jamey? Who’s going to make you see what? What are you talking about? Jamey?”
But Jamey’s eyes were still fixed on something else. Larry, looking up, tried to figure what Jamey was staring at. Moving closer, he pushed on the bushes right in front of the other boy, drawing them to one side. Beyond was nothing but woods.
Suddenly Jamey stopped whispering, though his mouth remained open and his eyes fixed. For a second Larry thought he was beginning to come around and patted him on the shoulder a couple of times, saying everything was okay. But even though Jamey was silent now, he was shaking just as violently as before.
“Jamey. . . say something,” Larry said, shaking the other boy’s shoulder. “Jamey.”
Suddenly Larry stopped. Kneeling down at once, his mouth open, he realized what was wrong. Staring into the other boy’s pale, blank face, Larry said, “You’re asleep . . . are
n’t you?” He waited. Then, when there was not a flicker of recognition, he raised his hand and lowered it in front of Jamey’s eyes, repeating the motion a few more times.
Not a blink.
Suddenly Jamey stood up. He stood absolutely still for a moment. Then, before Larry could say a word, Jamey started walking through the bushes, heading out of the McAlister yard. Larry looked at him, not knowing what to do. Casting a backward glance at the dark windows of his house, Larry knew he couldn’t possibly get inside and wake his dad quickly enough. By then, Jamey would already have gotten away. There was nothing else for Larry to do but stay with him. He turned and hopped over some bushes, following after Jamey until he came abreast of him out on the narrow little asphalt-topped street that ran next to the McAlisters’ house.
“It’s okay. I’m coming with you. You just take it easy. Hear?” Larry said, not sure why he was talking to Jamey, except that it made him feel better to do it. He glanced over at the house on the corner. It was the McInness place, just an ordinary house, its windows dark, like all the other windows in Lucerne at that hour of the night. Of course, he knew that they were all inside, asleep. Mr. McInness and his wife, Francine, and their little girl, Judy. He knew that. And yet, from just looking at the desolate darkness of the porch and windows, he couldn’t keep from feeling that something else was going on inside: something horrible and sinister. Like a nest of vampires. Or maybe there was something watching from the attic. Or how they might all be laid out stiff and dead, each one in his or her own bed.
He knew it was just his imagination making him think like that. And yet, as he thought about it, was the truth any stranger? And an image rose in Larry’s mind: He could see them, each of them dead to the world, shrouded in darkness, their eyes closed, their mouths slightly agape. Just looking at them, how could you tell whether they were dead or not? And then there was the fact that inside each of them something was going on, a dream world was unfolding, a world totally inaccessible to anyone else, each little world locked away, separate. Or at least it was supposed to be locked away and separate.
Deliver Us From Evil Page 14
